The Wendigo American Horror Story

The wind howled like a ravenous beast across the Michigan wilderness, tearing through the frozen pines and rattling the shutters of the isolated cabin. Snow had fallen for three days straight, piling high against the door, sealing the family inside. The storm was merciless, swallowing the world in blinding white.

Inside the cabin, the Walker family huddled near the woodstove. The flickering orange glow of the fire was the only warmth left in the house. The woodpile had dwindled to a few pieces, and the cupboards were empty. Their breaths clouded in the air, their bellies hollow and aching.

Tom Walker, the father, sat hunched with his arms wrapped around his knees. His face was gaunt, his eyes shadowed from lack of sleep. His wife, Margaret, lay on the couch beneath a quilt, her lips pale, her body trembling with cold. Beside her sat their children — Anna, sixteen, staring blankly into the fire, and Jacob, twelve, shivering and weak.

They had come to the cabin for what was supposed to be a holiday. Tom’s grandfather had built it decades ago, and the family thought it would be a peaceful retreat away from the noise of the city. But the storm had come early, stronger than anyone predicted. The radio had gone silent two days ago. No one knew if help would come.

The hunger was the worst part. It gnawed at them, hollow and relentless, an ache that consumed every thought. Margaret whispered prayers under her breath, her words lost in the crackle of the fire. Anna tried to keep Jacob calm, stroking his hair when he cried at night.

On the third night of the storm, Tom heard it.

At first, he thought it was the wind, a low moan threading through the trees. But then it grew clearer, sharper — a voice. A voice calling his name.

Tom… Tom…

He sat up, heart pounding, straining his ears. The sound came from outside, just beyond the walls of the cabin.

He told himself it was his imagination. Hunger could do that — make you see things, hear things. But then he saw something move through the window. A shadow, tall and gaunt, slipping between the trees. Antlers glinted in the moonlight.

Tom’s breath caught in his throat. He stumbled back from the window, but when he looked again, the figure was gone.

That night, he didn’t sleep.

The next morning, Anna complained of hearing voices too. She said someone was whispering to her, urging her to step outside, to follow into the snow. Jacob claimed he saw something standing at the edge of the treeline, watching the cabin with burning yellow eyes.

Margaret tried to keep them calm, insisting it was the storm playing tricks on them. But Tom knew better.

His grandfather had told him stories of the Wendigo when he was a boy. Legends whispered by the Ojibwe and Cree — of a spirit born from hunger and winter, a creature with an endless appetite for human flesh. Once it had tasted you, once it had marked you, it would never stop hunting.

He had always thought the tales were just that — stories meant to frighten children. But now, with the storm outside and shadows slipping between the trees, the stories felt real.

That night, Tom dreamed of feasting. He dreamed of tearing flesh with his teeth, of blood steaming in the snow. When he woke, his mouth watered, and for a moment, he didn’t know if the dream had been his own hunger or something else whispering in his mind.

By the fifth day, Margaret could no longer rise from the couch. Her body was too weak, her eyes glazed. Jacob whimpered constantly, his stomach cramping. Anna sat silent, her skin drawn tight across her bones.

Tom paced the floor like a caged animal. He had tried to dig through the snowdrifts to find firewood, but the storm buried his tracks as quickly as he made them. He could feel something circling the cabin at night, brushing against the walls, scratching faintly at the door.

On the sixth night, the bells of hunger rang louder. Tom swore he saw a figure standing in the corner of the cabin, half-hidden in shadow. Its limbs were stretched unnaturally long, its ribs pressing against its pale, frozen skin. Antlers curled from its skull like twisted branches.

Its mouth split wide in a grin too large for its face, revealing jagged, bloodstained teeth.

Tom blinked, and the figure was gone. But its whisper remained.

Feed… feed, and you will survive.

The next morning, Tom found Jacob staring at him strangely, his eyes wide and frightened. “Dad,” the boy whispered, “your teeth look different.”

Tom rushed to the cracked mirror by the wall. His reflection stared back at him — gaunt, hollow-eyed, his lips cracked. But Jacob was right. His teeth looked sharper, his canines elongated. His skin looked tight, stretched.

His stomach growled, twisting painfully. He felt his mouth water as his gaze drifted to Margaret, who lay weak and unmoving beneath the quilt.

Tom recoiled, slamming his fists against the wall. No. Not them. Never them.

But the whispers grew louder with each passing hour.

That night, Anna disappeared.

Tom woke to the door banging open, snow blasting inside. Anna’s footprints trailed into the storm. He screamed her name, stumbling into the blizzard, but the wind swallowed his voice. The snow blinded him, and for a moment, he thought he saw her silhouette moving through the trees — hand in hand with a tall figure crowned in antlers.

He followed until his lungs burned, until the snow buried him to his waist. Then he saw the eyes — glowing yellow, staring at him from the darkness. Dozens of them, circling him, closing in.

Tom stumbled back to the cabin, the whispers of the Wendigo hissing in his ears.

By morning, Anna’s footprints were gone. Margaret wept silently, her tears freezing on her cheeks. Jacob curled against her, too weak to move.

Tom felt himself unraveling. His hunger was no longer human. It was something else, something gnawing from the inside, demanding to be fed. He could feel the Wendigo’s presence in his blood, seeping through his veins.

On the seventh day, Margaret died. She slipped away in her sleep, her chest rising and falling one last time before stillness took her.

Tom sat beside her body, staring at her pale face, the blue tinge of her lips. His stomach howled, his hands trembled. He could smell her — not as his wife, but as food.

Jacob whimpered from the couch, his voice barely audible. “Dad… don’t.”

Tom turned away, tears streaming down his face. He buried Margaret’s body in the snow outside the cabin, though every step was agony. The smell clung to him, the urge to taste her overwhelming.

That night, Jacob screamed. Tom woke to see the boy thrashing, his eyes wide with terror. At the foot of his bed stood the Wendigo, its skeletal frame towering, its antlers scraping the ceiling.

It leaned down, its face inches from Jacob’s. Its breath fogged the air, reeking of rot and blood.

Tom lunged, but his hands passed through the creature like smoke. The Wendigo turned its head slowly, its yellow eyes locking with his.

He is mine now.

Jacob’s body went limp. His breathing stopped.

Tom fell to his knees, howling. He had nothing left — no wife, no children, no food, no hope. Only hunger.

And then the Wendigo stepped closer.

Its clawed hand pressed against Tom’s chest. He felt his ribs snap, his heart lurch. Pain ripped through him as his bones stretched, his skin tore. Antlers burst from his skull, claws from his fingers. His jaw unhinged, teeth lengthening into knives.

The hunger consumed him, reshaping him, remaking him. He screamed, but the scream was not human — it was a shriek that echoed through the forest, chilling the air.

The Wendigo had chosen him.

When the storm finally cleared and rescue parties arrived at the cabin, they found only blood on the snow and claw marks carved into the walls. The cabin was abandoned, the family gone.

But hunters in the Michigan woods began whispering of something new in the wilderness. Something with glowing eyes and antlers like twisted branches. Something that stalked the trees, its howl splitting the night.

The Wendigo had found another host. And it was hungry.